GOP candidate sorry for remark about Democrats as mass shooters

Handguns on display at the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s 2011 trade show in Las Vegas. (Ethan Miller, Getty Images)

A Republican trying to take on Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., apologized Monday for saying nearly all mass shootings have been caused by Democrats.

“This past weekend, I made a comment about the political affiliation of perpetrators of gun violence in the heat of a debate. I’ve since learned that the information I based the comment off of was inaccurate and incorrect,” Gary Kiehne, a rancher running in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, said in a statement reported by CQ Roll Call.

“Simply put, I shouldn’t have made the comment, and I want to offer my apology for making it without any reservatives,” Kiehne said.

The Arizona Daily Starreported this weekend that Kiehne said: “If you look at all the fiascos that have occurred, 99% of them have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people. So I don’t think you have a problem with the Republicans.” Kiehne’s comment was made before an audience of about 60 people at a debate sponsored by the Pinal County Republican Committee.

Mass shootings are a sensitive topic in Arizona since the 2011 rampage in Tucson that seriously wounded then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six people. Kirkpatrick’s district adjoins the area that Giffords used to represent.

Kiehne, one of three Republicans in the Aug. 26 GOP primary, is also backtracking on comments comparing Vietnamese refugees to undocumented immigrants and police officers to Nazis, reported The Arizona Republic.